High School Service Projects: A Graduation Requirement?

Volunteering should be a requirement of high school students. Their volunteering could be of any decent nature, as long as they are not getting paid and it is truly volunteer work.

In high school, I was required to complete a "senior project" before I was allowed to graduate. This project was designed to expand my education from the classroom and give me real life experiences. Each student was (and still is) required to complete forty hours of volunteer services in whatever way the student sees fit, whether it be community service, scientific investigation, creative production, or other education experience. All projects had to include a two-page product proposal (with signed parental approval), an information sheet signed by the project sponsor (whoever the student is volunteering for/with), an approval signature from the project panel (obtained in the beginning of junior year), documentation (by the student) of the projects development, student assessment of the project, and a completed product to be presented to the project panel.

For my project, I spent well over forty hours advertising, begging, gathering, and cataloging school supplies for a needy elementary school in Philadelphia. To collect these supplies, I hung signs up practically all over the county, spoke a my local Girl Scout Service Unit meeting, and put boxes all around my local schools. Every single item collected was then cataloged, so that the teacher would know exactly what she was receiving, and also so she could have a card catalog for the books we were giving her class. In addition, I spent two days at the school giving the teacher and students what was collected for them, helping with their lessons, and doing various activities with them.

This experience was by far one of the best experiences of my life. It was a lot of work at the time, but looking back on it and remembering the kids faces when they saw all the things collected just for them, I would do it again in a heartbeat. I would not have given up that experience for the world.

Everyone deserves to experience something so wonderful. At the time, they might not realize how great it is and they might see it as a nuisence, but they are going to learn from it. Years later, these kids will look back and say "Wow, I really helped someone.", and they will feel good about it. Hopefully, it will inspire them to help out in their community on a regular basis.

Volunteer projects give students an opportunity to get out in the real world, get hands on experience, and learn. Who knows, they might just find something they really love in the process.